robotwarsfandomcom-20200215-history
Draven
Draven was a competitor robot from Cranbrook, Kent, that competed in the first series of Robot Wars Extreme and later in Series 8-9 of Robot Wars. It took part in a Wild Card Warrior battle against series veteran King B Powerworks in Extreme 1, but lost, and was defeated in its Group Battle in both Series 8 and Series 9 after being damaged and immobilised by M.R. Speed Squared and Shunt respectively. Design Draven was a six-wheeled box-shaped robot armed with a hydraulic crushing jaw that operates with 4 tonnes of pressure. The jaw is mounted on a lifting arm, which allows the robot to lift approximately 200kg and self-right whenever it is flipped. For its appearance in Robot Wars Extreme, Draven was painted silver all over, and was fitted with blue LED's to illuminate its eyes. However, these did not show up on-screen as well as the team had hoped, so they were later replaced with red LEDs. In 2016, Draven's armour was made of a carbon-fibre and Kevlar composite shell, with bonded-on titanium plates, giving it a black and silver colour scheme. The robot weighed 110kg in Series 8, and boasted an improved top speed of 15mph thanks to its six-wheel drive, twin 1,500W motors and 29.6V lithium iron phosphate battery. Draven was updated again for Series 9. It featured a new cad-based chassis, new drive motors, motor controllers, batteries, armour, pump with BLDC motor, and new radio systemshttps://www.facebook.com/Dravenrobot/videos/1781803485170585. The robot's body-shape and weaponry remains similar, but Draven returned to its silver colour-scheme. Its jaw now closed at twice the speed of the previous version, with six tonnes of power in crushing strength, and half a tonne of lifting capability, which allowed the robot to self-right quickly. Etymology Draven was originally given the name Anthrax and this name was used during the original airing of its Robot Wars Extreme appearance on BBC Choice. By the time the episode reached BBC Two, however, the name had to be changed due to an anthrax scare in the USA which occurred at the time. All usage of the original Anthrax name was removed and all subsequent airings of the episode remained this way, although Draven is still referred to by its original name in Robot Wars: The Ultimate Guide, and was referred to as Anthrax in a 2002 Guardian article.https://www.theguardian.com/media/2002/jan/11/broadcasting1 This case was very similar to Roadblock years before, which had also required a name change due to concerns about its original name, Road Rage, being raised before filming of Series 1 began. The name Draven is inspired by the 1994 film The Crow, where the main character is called Eric Draven, and the robot Draven's beak is much like that of a crow. An official BBC press release referred to the Series 9 version of Draven as Lord Draven'http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2017/11/robot-wars, although this name was never seen outside of this context. Draven's team later revealed that the Lord Draven name was a suggestion from the production crew, but the team were not interested in using it. The Team Draven was entered into ''Robot Wars by Anarchic Engineering, a group of friends who met at the University of York while studying Electronic Engineering. The captain of the team was Martin Gutkowski, aged 39 at the time of Series 9, and an engineer for Dyson. Gutkowski designed Draven in CAD software, and drove the robot in battle. He was consistently joined by fellow engineer Richard Johnstone in all of Draven's appearances, with Johnstone being responsible for Draven's electronics. The remaining spaces on Anarchic Engineering changed in every series. In Extreme, the third teammate was Joe Gibson. In Series 8, 26-year old Alex May contributed towards the CAD and build process of Draven, while Roy Harris created the robot's bodyshell and operated the weaponry. In Series 9, Martin Gutkowski's colleagues at Dyson, Dan Heggs and Leigh Salmon, joined the team. 19-year old Dan Heggs was credited as the 'team goth', while Leigh Salmon now operated Draven's weaponry, and contributed towards its software. Qualification Prior to entering Series 8, Draven had attempted to enter the original series of Robot Wars three times, but failed on every occasion as a result of its poor reliability. Under its original name of Anthrax, it first failed to qualify for Series 4, where it entered the arena but never movedhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A71KZepLoVA. Draven then lost its qualifier in Series 5 after it broke down and was reportedly dumped out of the arena by Shunt. Draven attempted to enter again in Series 6, but lost to S.M.I.D.S.Y. in its qualifier, and did not attempt to enter Series 7. Draven finally qualified for a main series in 2016 when the qualification process changed to open applications, which allowed Draven to qualify for Series 8 and 9. However, Draven was not selected to compete in Series 10, where the team claimed they did not show enough evidence that the robot had been improvedhttps://www.facebook.com/Dravenrobot/posts_to_page/. Robot History Extreme 1 Draven was given its first chance to compete in the Wild Card Warriors, drawn against former Semi-Finalist and Tag Team Terror winner King B Powerworks, which was the inspiration for Draven's design. Anarchic Engineering were able to organise this battle with their inspiration after Pussycat was unable to competehttps://www.facebook.com/Dravenrobot/posts/1795644713786462:0. The battle started, and Draven manoeuvred its way towards the back of King B Powerworks, as the latter's saw blade was not spinning. However, Draven could not use its weapon either, and failed to grip King B Powerworks when it had various opportunities. Draven backed King B Powerworks into an empty CPZ, but was stabbed side-on by King B's prongs in retaliation. Draven and King B Powerworks attempted to attack each other in vain, causing no external damage, until Draven started to lose a noticeable amount of speed. At this stage, King B Powerworks used its prongs to wedge underneath Draven and lift it up, slotting the weaponry into one of Draven's wheelguards. Draven lifted its head up and down to show mobility, but it was pushed into the pit release button and turned directly into the pit. Series 8 Draven competed in Heat 2, facing fellow newcomers Chimera and Foxic, as well as a new robot from a veteran team, M.R. Speed Squared, in the first round. Draven made the first move in the qualifier, driving towards Foxic, but ending up on top of its wedge. Draven chased Foxic across the arena, catching up and slotting underneath the back of it, but failed to use its crushing jaw. Draven pushed Chimera, which had already lost a wheel, beyond the flame pit and into an empty CPZ. However, despite the strong start, Draven was then targeted by M.R. Speed Squared, which ripped a piece of armour away. Draven returned to attack the struggling Foxic, but M.R. Speed Squared caught up, and ripped another panel from Draven. This blow immobilised Draven, and it was counted out, eliminating it from the competition. Series 9 Draven competed in Heat 2. In its Group Battle, it faced Team S.Tek's new robot Push to Exit, Team Saint's new entry Cherub and the returning PP3D. In the opening seconds, Draven immediately drove towards Push to Exit as the latter sped across the arena, before bumping into Push to Exit twice and dodging Cherub. Draven then attempted to grab PP3D, but two successive hits from PP3D's disc deflected it, causing sparks to fly upon contact with its armour. Draven drove away and rammed into Cherub, but was almost thrown onto its side after driving over the Floor Flipper, and had the bottom part of its crusher torn open after driving head-on into PP3D again. More sparks flew as Draven spun itself into the wall near the Doom Dial. It recovered to charge into PP3D once more, but PP3D pushed Draven across the arena into Shunt's CPZ, all the while causing severe damage to its lower armour and tyres. Shunt axed Draven twice, the second hit cleaving a hole through Draven's top armour and immobilising it instantly, before dragging, lifting and pushing it out of the CPZ. Following this, Draven was eliminated from Series 9 along with Push to Exit, which itself became immobilised a few seconds after Draven. Results |} Wins/Losses *Wins: 0 *Losses: 3 Series Record DravenMockup.jpg|A mock-up of Draven during construction Draven being built.jpg|Draven being built DravenSelfRights.jpg|Draven demonstrates its srimech DravenTeam.jpg|The team with Julia Reed in Extreme Dravenpits.jpg|Draven in the pits during Series 8 Lord draven unused vr.png|Draven in a unused VT for Series 9 draven s9 gateway.png|Draven enters the arena during Series 9 draven s9 arena.png|Draven in the arena during Series 9 Anthrax 2000.jpg|Anthrax at Robots@War in 2000 Outside Robot Wars In 2001, Draven (at the time still Anthrax) appeared at a meetup held at Oundle Mill, alongside other robots such as 101 and Raizer Blade. Here, Draven assisted in the destruction of Judge Mech, as many robots including Dominator 2 forcibly retired the machine. Following its appearance in Extreme, Draven was rebuilt, and made two appearances the ESAT/BT young scientist exhibition in Dublin, where it appeared alongside King B Powerworks, Bigger Brother, Razer, Panic Attack and Chaos 2. The Series 8 version of Draven with the Series 9 shell was among other former competitors that appeared in the 2018 Robonerd event on display. Trivia *Draven is one of only ten robots to debut in Extreme 1 and then fight in one of the main competition, not counting Typhoon. The others were 3 Stegs to Heaven, Axe-Awe, Comengetorix, Fighting Torque, Fluffy, NEAT Machine, Spawn Again, Sub-Version and The Executioner. *When teams were given permission to publicly reveal their participation in Series 9 over social media, Draven was the first robot to be revealed this way. *One of Glitterbomb's mascots was attached to Draven's pincer during the pre-match interview with Dara Ó Briain in Series 9. *Footage of a partially-assembled Draven was also used in the opening/end sequences for the Facebook video series, How to Build a Robot. External Links *Draven - Robot Wars Facebook page *[http://www.robotwars.tv/competitors/season-8/week-2/draven/ Draven (Series 8) on the Robot Wars website] *[http://www.robotwars.tv/competitors/season-9/week-2/draven/ Draven (Series 9) on the Robot Wars website] *Archived Anthrax website References Category:Robots with moving arms Category:UK Series competitors Category:Wild Card Warriors Category:Robots from Kent Category:Robots with names based on film and television Category:Robots from Schools or Universities Category:Robots with multiple appearances without winning a battle Category:Robots with Pincers Category:Robots which debuted in Extreme 1 Category:Robots to compete in both eras of Robot Wars Category:Robots to never have a judges' decision Category:Robots with cameo appearances in Series 10